Expressway emergency lanes are special passages for vehicles on emergency services such as engineering rescue, fire rescue, medical rescue, or urgent business of civilian police. Article 82 of Regulation on the Implementation of the Road Traffic Safety Law of the People's Republic of China specifies that, motor vehicles shall not travel or stop on an emergency lane in a non-emergency situation when traveling on an expressway. An emergency situation generally refers to vehicle breakdown and waiting for rescue, traffic accidents and waiting for rescue, sudden onset of diseases and waiting for rescue, or the like. The expressway emergency lane can be regarded as a lifeline that must not be blocked. However, many ill-mannered drivers ignore the regulation. Especially when expressway congestion is caused by unexpected accidents or large traffic flows during festivals and holidays, they illegally occupy the emergency lanes for traveling and overtaking in order to move fast, eventually causing blocking of the emergency lanes. As a result, various types of emergency vehicles cannot rapidly reach the accident spots, and irreversible damages will be caused to personal safety and property security of others. The current regulation specifies that, the violation of emergency lane occupancy shall lead to a deduction of 6 points and a fine of 200 RMB. However, as evidence of a violation behavior of emergency lane occupancy can only be collected by electronic police and expressway traffic police on the spot at present, some drivers have the fluke mind that they will not get caught, and thus the violation behavior repeatedly occurs in spite of the regulation.
Very few mobile terminal-based methods or systems for collecting evidence of traffic violation behaviors are available currently, and special mobile phone apps of reporting traffic violation behaviors using “snapshot” have already emerged. Taking the software “Violation Snapshot” for example, after taking violation photos, users can select among options of “traffic violation”, “black smoke emission”, “spilling on road”, and “save and send later” according to the violation situation, and then inform related government departments by one click before transferring to personal microblogs. Such reporting behavior can enhance public awareness of supervision of law enforcement, and improve law enforcement efficiency of the traffic control department. The captured violation photos can be used by the traffic control department as vehicle violation clues or evidence after the photos are checked by the traffic control department.
However, the significant defects of the App lie in that: 1. the privacy of the reporter cannot be effectively protected and malicious retaliation may occur; 2. if a reward mechanism is introduced, occupational “snapshooters” may emerge; and 3. after the report information is transferred to official microblog of the traffic control department, timely manual processing is required, and sufficient manpower is needed, and in the actual situation, the report information often fails to be processed in time and even no feedback is provided.